(This project is part of a five-year grant awarded to The Center for Injury Research and Control (CIRCL) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

Funding Agency:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Grant No. R49/CCR310285)

Total Project Period:

9/1/03 - 8/31/08

Total Project Award:

$4,498,178 (total CIRCL grant award amount)

Principal Investigator:

Patrick Kochanek, MD (Department of Critical Care Medicine)

Co-Investigators:

Thomas Songer, PhD (Department of Epidemiology); Rachel Berger, MD, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

Project Status:

Inflicted traumatic brain injury (iTBI) is the leading cause of death from brain injury in infants and young children. Proper diagnosis of iTBI is difficult even for experienced, astute physicians because its presentation can be subtle and important historical data are often lacking. Preliminary data in children show that serum levels of specific biomarkers are sensitive indicators of both inflicted and non-inflicted TBI. The hypothesis of this project is that increased levels of these serum biomarkers can be used to indicate brain injury in a population of infants at increased risk for iTBI. A positive serum biomarker level does not imply a diagnosis of child abuse; however, a positive test would suggest the presence of brain injury and the need for further evaluation. If this approach is successful, it could potentially help in reducing the incidence of misdiagnosis of iTBI and ultimately prevent severe or fatal re-injury of these infants.